Dissertation
The Electoral Intersection: Information and Context
How do individuals' knowledge of politics and exposure to campaigns interact to affect voting behavior? Campaigns provide new information to particular segments of the population. In addition, individuals bring their prior knowledge of politics to weigh on new information. Thus the information brought to bear on political behavior can be quite different from one individual to the next and from one environment to the next. This research seeks to paint a fuller picture of how campaigns are interpreted and utilized by a heterogeneous electorate.
The challenge of understanding how individuals process and react to campaign information suggests a methodologically inclusive approach. This project utilizes both observational and experimental data to investigate the impact of campaigns on specific dimensions of political information. Differences in information and exposure are also exploited to test for combined and distinct causal influences on political attitudes and behavior. Contrary to previous research designs, which have been largely static, the focus is on how the relationships between information and exposure interact throughout the course of the campaign.
| Supported in part by a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Research Grant (Award # 0921734) |
Dissertation Committee
Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier
Kathleen M. McGraw
Herbert F. Weisberg (Chair)